Photo: The Freedom Factory

Two cases of McKinlay scotch whiskey has been found buried under snow and ice in Antarctica. The site is a former base camp for British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton who attempted to reach the south pole in 1909. Shackleton eventually abandoned his mission, leaving his base camp behind, including the whiskey.

“Whyte & Mackay, the drinks group that now owns McKinlay and Co., has asked for a sample of the 100-year-old scotch for a series of tests that could decide whether to relaunch the now-defunct Scotch.

Workers from New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust will use special drills to reach the crates, frozen in Antarctic ice under the Nimrod Expedition hut near Cape Royds.”

Of course, as the whiskey was left behind a hundred years ago, and whiskey takes a while to become, well, whiskey, it’s probably a hundred-and-then-some years. According to Whyte and Mackay, it should still be as tasty as it was back then, and if they manage to obtain a sample from it  they just might start reproduction.

CBS via BoingBoing